Genius Hour Rubric Examples

Why Genius Hour?

What would happen if students were given sufficient opportunity, encouragement and guidance to discover and explore what they were passionate about?

What if all students understood that they have particular talents, perspectives, and passions, and that all that makes them "different" is their greatest gift?

What would this mean for their confidence and boldness? For student engagement? For their perceptions about learning and school?

More importantly, what would it mean for the world

What is Genius Hour?

Genius Hour is a instructional practice that supports many, many big ideas in education.

First, it is passion based learning in that students have choice in the topics or ideas they want to learn more about.

Second, it is personalized learning in that, again, students are learning and questioning and sharing at their own pace on their own subject matters or areas of interest. While a teacher may want to target a specific subject matter, a key component of this is the student choice aspect.

Third, motivation in students tend to increase when students have choice in their learning because they are intrinsically motivated and driven in their learning.

Fourth, this type of learning put the responsibility for learning back in the hands of the students. The teacher is no longer the person with the most amount of knowledge in the room.

Fifth, it covers a ton of student learning targets in the areas of research, presentation (speaking and listening), reading, and writing.

What does this look like?

At first, students will say, "Wait! What?" "So what are we getting credit for" , "What kinds of things can we do?". "Why aren't we being graded?", and "I don't get what we are supposed to be doing?"​After a bit more explanation, the student begin to understand. They are not going to be graded, but they are going to be accountable. For our 20% project, they document their learning through writing, podcasts, videos journals, etc. They present their accomplishments to the class. This "accountability" aligns, in part, with the ELA standards: writing, reading, speaking, listening, and viewing.

20% Time

Commandments:

Choice: Students must be able to choose their own project and final product.

Structured Unstructured Time: Time has to be scheduled not at random times in the day.

Peer Accountability: It's positive peer pressure

Reflection: What did you learn?

Presentation: sharing

Guidelines:​

For the rest of the year, 20% of your time in my class will be spent working on something you want to work on.

It has to be some type of learning , and you have to document your learning.

You will present your accomplishments to the class twice ( and will not be graded on it)